text: The term nucleus is from the Latin word , a diminutive of  (nut), meaning the kernel (i.e., the small nut) inside a watery type of fruit (like a peach). In 1844, Michael Faraday used the term to refer to the "central point of an atom". The modern atomic meaning was proposed by Ernest Rutherford in 1912. The adoption of the term "nucleus" to atomic theory, however, was not immediate. In 1916, for example, Gilbert N. Lewis stated, in his famous article The Atom and the Molecule, that "the atom is composed of the kernel and an outer atom or shell."
  Similarly, the term kern meaning kernel is used for nucleus in German and Dutch.